Day 1

Tried to fall asleep around 12:00 AM...Almost successful but, the girls next door had a run in with a spider and they needed some men to take care of it. Got to bed around 1:00 and then woke up at 6:30, I didn´t really feel tired though. Must have been the excitement. We made our way towards the Embera tribe at around 7:30 and arrvied at 9:30. It was definately a long a bumpy ride. It was amazing to see all of the untarnished land that exists outside of the city here. Once we arrived we were greeted by the Embera...they are relatively friendly people and most of them spoke spanish so it wasn´t too difficult to communicate. The Embera took us on a canoe trip. All you could see were miles and miles of trees, and it was beautiful. There was the occasional hut but, even those didn´t ruin the view. We took the canoes to trail in the forest. A few classmates and I decided to walk ahead of the pack. We encountered spiderwebs the size of our heads and lizards with neon green stripes...Things you don´t see that often. We followed the path all the way to a waterfall. Words really can´t do the scene and justice, so I´ll leave that up to the pictures that I´m going to upload. Many of my classmates took the opportunity to swim at the base of the waterfall. Sayeff and I decided to climb up the side of the waterfall instead of swimming. In retrospect this was probably a dumb idea but, we wanted to explore. The path was realtively narrow so it was difficult to navigate...by the time we reached the top we were somewhere around 25 feet off the ground. We followed the path a little bit further to get some better pictures of the top of the waterfall. After a few snapshots we went to the edge of the waterfall and looked at our classmates swimming down below. We took a few more photos and headed down. The descent was much more difficult then the ascent. Since it was so narrow at some points we were almost sitting and sliding down rocks. Sayeef and I encountered Anton on our way down and he wanted to head up and check it out. We were all about to turn around and climb back up when Mr. Mejias shouted at us to get down, apparently the guide told us there were jaguars up there. It´s a shame I didn´t get to see one, that would have been a crazy experience. During the rest of our descent I lost my footing and grabbed onto a tree to steady myself. That was my first mistake. The tree was infested with ants which happened to be about the size of my eye, and they had a bite to match! Needless to say I was bit in several places on my arm and it immediatly began swelling. Luckily, Mr. Lucien, a.k.a Mr. Prepared, had some benadryl which aptly took care of the swelling. We headed back to the canoes for another ride and this time they took us to one of their villages. We were greeted by boys in loincloths playing instruments...I´ll upload a video on facebook later to explain. About ten of us ran into a few children and began talking to them. They were very entertaining, they told me they were 5 years old and a little bit about there life. One of the little girls was beating up her little brother which was also pretty entertaining. Our guide led us to a giant hut made of strong wood and palm frans. Here we met an Embera named Antonio who told us everything there was to know about their culture. It was very interesting...The woman there get married between the ages of 16 and 20 and it´s not uncommon for a family to have more than 6 children. We were also fed a traditional meal which consisted of plantain chips and fried tilapia wrapped in a palm fran. Esta para chuparse los dedos! If you squeeze some fresh lemon on the plantains they taste 100x better...I learned that trick from Hugo. We also ate some typical fruits; pineapples, watermelons, oranges, and bananas. They served us water and coca-cola to drink, the interesting thing is that coca-cola here tastes a little different then in America because they don´t use high fructose corn syrup, instead they use pure sugar cane. After dinner we were taken to another hut where some of the younger Embera showed us their traditional dance. It was definately different. After they showed the dance they started grabbing some of my classmates and making them dance too. Now we were having fun! I got it all on film by the way...It´s all going to be on facebook when I get back :). After the dancing some of the Embera gave us tattoos. The ink was made from a fruit and it apparently lasts about 10 days. Mine looks pretty sweet. I tipped the lady a few dollars after giving me one, it seemed like that was the way things were done. I had an opportunity to look at many of the handmade things they were selling. They were awesome! Statues of jaguars, frogs, dolphins, turtles, and herons all made out of this dense wood. I heard that a single statue takes about a month to complete. I really wanted to buy one but they were very expensive...some were upwards of 100 dollars! But, for the amount of work they put into them I understand why the price was so high. I did purchase a gift for my girlfriend...I still need to find some stuff for the rest of my family. Hopefully we can visit un mercado del aire libre and I can find some stuff for them. After we finished our shopping the Embera took us back to the canoes and brought us back to shore where our bus was waiting. I slept the two hour ride back and now I´m writing this blog. So far Panama is a fantastic experience and I´m hoping tomorrow is just as good!

-Billy Halaby